Radio Reporter Rescue

** NEWSFLASH: THRESHOLD CROSSED! **

Thank you to every donor (including—and especially—the mysterious Mr. X)! Your generosity is remarkable and deeply appreciated. The 'Radio Reporter Rescue' project is now underway.

These funds are now in a bank account held in trust for the journalist, whose name we're not publishing online, but who is himself able to get online and see how many of you have jumped in to help him out! He says that words of gratitude seem insufficient to express how much your help means to him, but he wants you to know that in his heart he knows very clearly what your help means, and he will never forget it.

We now have a bank account in our Afghan friend's name, containing enough money to meet the Canadian government's minimum requirements for his resettlement application. This, combined with money from his five sponsoring individuals, will support him during his first year in Toronto, as he seeks to start his life again here.

The process from here can be very drawn-out and will test our friend's patience and endurance further. He has already been stuck in Indonesia for about eight years. If you ever hear political debates about funding for Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada or its 'private sponsorship' program, it is in situations such as our friend's that those debates have their consequences. What were once six-month waiting periods have become 2-3 year waits, as a few government officers tackle the giant and growing pile of applications, especially now that Canada is the only country where private citizens can group together to take on a refugee's resettlement. This bottleneck has been obstructed further by the pandemic, of course.

Nevertheless, it is a huge step forward and a great source of hope for our friend to have the application process begin, and that's thanks to all of these donations.

For more details, contact Tom directly.